Christopher Murphy

Mr. MURPHY

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for that question. That is why it is so important to link those two pieces together. If you really want to protect this country from terrorist attacks by a firearm--as I stated before, that is the weapon of choice for those who want to do harm to this country for political reasons--then you have to both make sure those individuals are on the list of those prohibited from buying weapons and you have to make sure when you go and buy a weapon you intersect with that list. This has been a long trend line, as both of my friends know. It used to be that almost everybody who bought a gun went into their local gun store to purchase that weapon, and over the course of time, for a variety of reasons, the means by which you bought a firearm has diversified significantly. We now have lots of sales occurring online, as we do with almost every other commercial good, and there is this buildout of gun shows, which are places where both licensed and nonlicensed dealers go to sell their guns in a very organized and controlled fashion. We have story upon story of individuals who have gone to buy guns in those gun stores in mass quantities, knowing that they would not have to go through a background check and then selling them on the black market. So someone who knows they are prohibited from buying a gun decides not to buy a gun in a gun store; instead, they go buy a number of weapons at a gun show, which is unregulated. Those individuals who are not licensed gun dealers are able to sell their weapons without background checks at a gun show, and they can get as many as they want. That is not a secret. I mean, you don't have to scratch the surface of America's gun law or debate this subject very hard to find out that there are easy ways to get guns without getting a background check. You can also go online. You can very easily buy a weapon on ARMSLIST without going through a background check. We cannot adequately protect this country from terrorist attacks by firearm unless you do both, and that is why those two are linked together. As the Senator also knows, let's not shy away from the fact that the reason we are on the floor today is that this slaughter also happens outside the realm of terrorist attacks. In fact, the majority-- 95-plus percent--of Americans who have been killed by guns were not killed in a terrorist attack, but many of them were killed by guns sold outside the background check system. This is a two for one. If there are objections on the Republican side to the provisions of the Manchin-Toomey legislation, I hope that over the course of this afternoon and this evening we can come together on those issues. If you pass some version of that legislation, which is supported by 90 percent of the American public and the vast majority of gun owners, in conjunction with putting terrorists or would-be terrorists or suspected terrorists on that same list, then you have not only protected our country from terrorist attacks, but you have also addressed this epidemic that we all live with on a regular basis, whether it be in Newark, Bridgeport, or, as Senator Durbin talked about, Chicago. The regularity of gun crime that is often associated with weapons that were purchased outside of the background check system is not an inevitability that we have to accept. We can do something about it by coming together today. I think that is what my friend is getting at by linking together two policies that have to be interdependent in order to protect ourselves from a terrorist attack, and it is also about this broader issue of taking on crimes in our city. I yield to the Senator from Connecticut for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator for that question. I talked to Senator Manchin about this earlier today. Much of the concern that I hear from individuals is that it is somehow a slippery slope that eventually leads to the government confiscating weapons. That is a mythology that has been created out of whole cloth by individuals who have something to gain from selling the story of perpetual fear of the government. Of course there is no evidence in the history of the national criminal background check system that is the case. So I think the root of people's opposition is in a fear about a hidden agenda of the government, which we know is simply not the truth. All the criminal background check systems do is protect the public by keeping guns out of the hands of violent criminals. I yield for the question.

Mr. MURPHY. That is true. I thank the Senator for making that patently clear. What we are suggesting here is that the way we can come together in this body is around the simple premise that individuals with serious criminal records, individuals who have been deemed mentally incompetent or incapable, and people on the terrorist watch list shouldn't be able to buy firearms. That is it. That is what we are talking about here today and to build out that system in an effective way that is as foolproof as possible. That has nothing to do with the limitation on an individual's Second Amendment right. If someone wants to go buy a firearm, they are not a suspected terrorist, they do not have a serious criminal record, and they have not been judged or deemed by a judge to be mentally incapable of making their own decisions, then there is nothing in what we are proposing in this body to come together on that would restrict that. I yield to my friend, the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Booker, for a question, without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I will yield to the Senator from New Jersey for a question.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator. This is an important start, but it is not sufficient. What is unacceptable is to do nothing. What would have been unacceptable is to spend this entire week on legislative business that was irrelevant to the epidemic of gun violence that has been made more real than ever by the tragedy in Orlando. So I thank the Senator for helping us convene our colleagues over the course of 14-some odd hours. I think we can report having made progress, but certainly not enough. I will yield for a question to my friend Senator Blumenthal, who has been on the floor with us for the entirety of this time, standing with me, and frankly I have been standing with him, my senior Senator in this fight since 2012. I yield to him for a question without relinquishing control of the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank Senator Blumenthal for the final question. Let me reiterate my thanks to everyone who has persisted this evening--for all of our colleagues who have come down to the floor to join in this exercise, and, again, to all of the staff and the pages who, indeed, just showed up a week ago for standing with us and for their commitment to public service and to those who sat in the Chair. I have done that for an overnight session or two. I know it is not exactly the way to plan to spend your Wednesday evening. Most importantly, I thank Senator Booker for standing with me quite literally since 11:20 this morning and Senator Blumenthal for being a perpetual friend and partner. I woke up this morning determined to make sure that this wasn't going to be a lost week, and I have been furious since those days following Sandy Hook. I have been so angry that this Congress has mustered absolutely no response to mass shooting after mass shooting in city after city that is plagued by gun violence, such that the children who grow up in the east end of Bridgeport or the north end of Hartford live through stress and trauma that affects their brains in irreparable ways. I am embarrassed that it took me so long to become a convert to this issue. I am embarrassed, frankly, that it took the tragedy in Sandy Hook for me to wake up to the fact that people all around this country, in Newark, in cities in my State, have been living through this horror without attention from this body. There is no silver lining to what happened in Newtown, but inarguably what has happened in the 4 years since has been the focus of attention from all over this country on the inaction of this body and the failure of it to respond, and that is what is so perplexing to me. We have disagreements over what should be done, but what I have not understood is why we don't even attempt to find common ground on this floor--why, week after week, there is not a single vote or debate scheduled on any of the measures that have been proposed to try to stop this carnage. There hasn't been a debate scheduled on the floor of the Senate. There haven't been debates in committees. I am not saying we aren't doing important work, but there are 30,000 people dying every year on the streets of this country. Those whom they leave behind--their moms, their dads, their little sisters and brothers--don't get the total indifference we portray. I know we are not indifferent. I know, in talking to my Republican colleagues, that they feel just as deeply about the loss in Orlando and about the loss in New Haven or Chicago or Newark as we do. I know there is a commonality of emotion here that betrays the story line we portray to the American people. This exercise over the course of the last 14 hours in many ways has been a plea for this body to find a way to come together on answers, because it is devastating. It is devastating to the families who live through this trauma to watch the U.S. Senate do nothing, absolutely nothing, week after week. Think about that. Sandy Hook was 4 years ago, 3\1/2\ years ago, and Congress hasn't passed a single measure that would make the next mass shooting, the next murder of kids in this country, less likely. I don't know what the vote is going to be--if we are successful, as we believe we will be, in getting these votes--but I do know it will be another chance for our colleagues to come together on two measures that we have carefully selected as being the most likely to get bipartisan votes. That is why we chose to demand votes on these two measures--A, because they are significant, they will make a difference, and B, because they are as noncontroversial as you can get. The American people have already made up their minds. They want a background check system that captures potential terrorists. They want to make sure everybody who buys a gun through a commercial sale has to prove they are not a criminal before they buy it. The American people have made up their minds. We chose to ask for the two least controversial provisions possible that still will do a world of good. I am pleased that we are on a path to get those votes. It is a necessary but insufficient response to the carnage that we witness in this country every single day. This is personal to all of us. Senator Kaine said it well earlier tonight--that we have scar tissue, but it is razor-thin scar tissue compared to those today in Orlando who are living through the catastrophe of losing a 21-year-old son in the prime of his life or losing a 24-year-old daughter with all of her potential ahead of her. Our scar tissue is there, but it is tiny. I close by telling a story that I told during my first speech on the floor of the Senate. I introduce you to Dylan Christopher Jack Hockley, who in this picture is age 6. According to just about everybody who knew him, it was impossible not to fall in love with Dylan Hockley if you met him. He loved video games, and he loved jumping on the trampoline and watching movies. He loved munching garlic bread. He had dimples, he had blue eyes, and he had this very mischievous little grin. You can see it here. And he is wearing one of his favorite shirts. His beaming smile would light up almost any room he was in. He loved to cuddle. He loved to play tag every single morning with the neighbors at the bus stop. He liked to watch movies, the color purple, and he loved seeing the Moon. He loved eating his favorite foods, especially chocolate. He was so proud that he was learning how to read, and he would bring a new book home every day. Most importantly, he adored his big brother Jake, who was his best friend and his role model. Dylan's mom Nicole, who has been a champion in the cause of ending gun violence in the country, always thought that Dylan was, in her words, ``a bit special, a bit different.'' She said: He was late to develop speech. He was late to learn to crawl, and there was always a little something about him, but we couldn't put our finger on it. He said he only liked bland foods and he wanted only plain spaghetti. He had a habit of flapping his hands when he got excited. He would put his hands over his ears when he heard sudden or loud noises. He was diagnosed with autism, but, as his father points out, autism is a spectrum with many different facets to it. Dylan loved repetition, and he would watch his favorite movies over and over again--``Up,'' ``Wall-E,'' and ``The Gruffalo.'' He would find a particular portion of that movie that he loved and he watched that portion. He would rewind, he would watch it, he would rewind, and he would watch it. When he watched his favorite parts, his laugh was infectious. Dylan was struggling with autism as a student at Sandy Hook Elementary School, but he was a special boy who was going to turn into a special young man. He idolized his brother Jake, but he idolized someone else as well. He idolized a woman named Anne Marie Murphy. Anne Marie Murphy was his special education teacher and his personal aide. Over the course of the beginning of his first grade year, they formed a bond, a deep bond that is often hard to form for kids with autism like Dylan. Their bond was so tight that he had a picture of her on the refrigerator, along with his class. Every day when he would walk by the refrigerator, he would point to the picture and say ``There's my class! There's Mrs. Murphy!'' It meant something to him to have that relationship, and he loved going to school in large part because he knew he had someone there who loved him back. Senator Booker has talked about the expectations that we should have for each other, that expectation of deep, passionate love for each other. Dylan and Anne Marie Murphy had it. Senator Blumenthal and I got to Sandy Hook Elementary School after most of the families had come to realize that their loved ones weren't coming back, that their little boys and girls were probably lying on the floor of those classrooms. We still saw and heard things that I think we both wish we didn't hear and see. When Nicole Hockley was standing in or outside the firehouse, when she came to the slow, awful, crippling realization that her little boy was not coming back, she had a moment where she thought to herself, maybe Anne Marie will come back and she will tell me what happened to my little boy. Then she had a second thought: that Anne Marie probably wouldn't leave Dylan if he was in danger. When Adam Lanza walked into that classroom and aimed his military- style assault weapon with clips attached to it, holding 30 bullets, Anne Marie Murphy probably had a chance to run or to hide or to panic. Instead, Anne Marie Murphy made the most courageous decision that any of us could imagine. Instead of running, instead of hiding, instead of panicking, Anne Marie Murphy found Dylan Hockley and embraced him. Do you know how we know that? Because when the police entered the classroom, that is how they found Dylan Hockley--dead, wrapped in the embrace of Anne Marie Murphy. It doesn't take courage to stand on the floor of the Senate for 2 hours or 6 hours or 14 hours. It doesn't take courage to stand up to the gun lobby when 90 percent of your constituents want change to happen. It takes courage to look into the eye of a shooter instead of running, wrapping your arms around a 6-year-old boy and accepting death as a trade for just a tiny, little, itty piece of increased peace of mind for a little boy under your charge. So this has been a day of questions. I ask you all this question: If Anne Marie Murphy could do that, then ask yourself what you can do to make sure that Orlando or Sandy Hook never ever happens again. With deep gratitude to all of those who have endured this very late night, I yield the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I would ask the Senator to withdraw that request at this time.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I would say in yielding to Senator Durbin for a question, just personally, it has meant so much to me to have Senator Durbin on the floor for almost the entirety of the now 13-plus hours. He is frankly a hero to those of us who showed up relatively late to this fight for justice on the issue of combating gun violence. I am so thankful to Senator Durbin for being here consistently with us, and I yield to him for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator from Maine, especially because, as he mentioned in his previous comments, he sits on the Intelligence Committee and so he is, frankly, privy to information he likely cannot state on the floor but is directly on point, which is this notion these terrorist groups, whether it be Al Qaeda or ISIS, now are more dependent than ever on inspiring and launching lone-wolf attacks. Why? Because they are losing ground in Syria and in Iraq, and this notion there was going to be an inevitable caliphate that was going to grow and prosper and control large amounts of territory in the Middle East is no longer a reality. As someone earlier today said on the floor, there is a record-low trickle of American citizens today going abroad--maybe it was my colleague from Maine--to join Al Qaeda, which suggests how their pull, how their gravitational pull has been greatly reduced. It means there are right ways and wrong ways to engage in this second front, this effort to try to launch lone-wolf attacks. The wrong way is to marginalize Muslim communities in this country by telling them they are less than, by telling them they are threats, by nature of their ethnicities or their religion, to the United States.

Mr. MURPHY. I will yield for a question.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator from Illinois. I thank him for setting an example of how to speak truth to power in this body. We have talked over the course of this afternoon about the influence of special interests and how they have affected this debate. There is simply no one in the U.S. Senate who, over a period of time, has ignored special interests and money and power and just done and said and fought for the right thing over and over again. To the extent that people like Senator Booker and I made the choice to run for this body even amidst its reputation for dysfunction, it is because we hoped that when we got here we could maybe--we could maybe--equal some portion of the example that the Senator has set. So personally--and I think I can speak on behalf of Senator Booker and Senator Blumenthal and myself. Certainly, for me it has meant so much that the Senator has been here for the totality of this debate. I say to Senator Durbin, thank you. It has meant just as much to me to have all our colleagues here today. It has meant the world to me to have Senator Blumenthal, my partner, engaging in this together and to have Senator Booker, as was mentioned, in an act of wonderful sympathy, make the decision to stand on his feet for the duration of this time as well. This has been organic. We sent out the word that we thought this was something important, but this really happened of its own volition. Everything that has happened outside of this Chamber today and tonight, with the hundreds of thousands of interactions, the ten thousand phone calls that have just come into our office alone speak to the wellspring of desire there is in this country to act--to act on the issue of the epidemic of gun violence. Of course, what we have proffered here are two simple measures that we think we are on our way to perhaps getting votes on. But we don't want votes; we ultimately want agreement. Hopefully, the momentum that comes from today and tonight and the 13 hours that we have been on the floor will get us there. I will yield for a question at this point, without losing my right to the floor, to Senator Booker.

Mr. MURPHY. The name Dabiq itself, which is the name of the publication this organization--that ISIS sends to the rest of the world is rooted in a spot that is representative to this terrorist group of the historic clash between East and West. So the entire orthodoxy of ISIS is based on this idea that we convince would-be converts that this is a fight between the Muslim faith and the Christian faith, which just again speaks to the fact that there are right ways and wrong ways to go about fulfilling the mission my colleague has articulated in the preamble of the Constitution. The wrong way is to blame these attacks on everyone who shares the Muslim faith. The right way is to target the very small subset of individuals of any faith who have connections to terrorist groups. The good news is that because of a network of surveillance we have endorsed, we can do much better than before in finding what individuals have that contact with terrorist groups, and when we find that out, it simply makes sense that we shouldn't sell them weapons. I thank the Senator.

Mr. MURPHY. This may sound strange, but you look to Justice Scalia for that balance. He writes in the majority opinion in Heller, a decision that a lot of our friends disagree with, that the Second Amendment right is not an unlimited right, just like all of the other amendments that Senator Kaine and I spoke about. In an interaction that I had with Senator Udall earlier in the day, we were remarking that neither of us believe that this really was a debate about the Second Amendment. This has nothing do with the Second Amendment because the Second Amendment very clearly, as interpreted by the Supreme Court very recently, is a right that comes with conditions. There are certain weapons that civilians shouldn't be able to own, and there are certain individuals who shouldn't be able to own any weapons at all if they have lost that right through, for instance, the commission of a felony. We just shouldn't accept this juxtaposition that gets made between those who say that you either support the Second Amendment or you want to stop criminals from getting guns at gun shows. These two goals are not mutually exclusive. Every single one of us can be a supporter of the Second Amendment and recognize, as the Supreme Court has very clearly, that there are limitations on that right; for instance, your ability to lose that right if you committed a crime or if you have had known association with terrorist organizations.

Mr. MURPHY. I yield to Senator Baldwin for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank my friend for the question, and I thank him for standing, quite literally, with me every second of these last 13-plus hours. I thank my friend from Connecticut as well, who is about to speak, for doing the same. It is nice to have friends. It is nice to have friends who are committed to the same thing as you are, but it is just nice to have friends. It doesn't have to be like this. There are so many things in this country that we accept as inevitable, true, and unchangeable, and we are right on the precipice of getting to the point in this country where we accept this level of gun violence and gun homicide as just a normal facet of life in this country. I know it because I heard the kids in the North End of Hartford tell me that the sound of ambulances and police sirens is their goodnight lullaby. They are used to falling asleep to the response of the next shooting. I knew it at the beginning of this week, when, as the news was filled with not just another mass shooting but the worst mass shooting in the history of this country, this body signaled that it wasn't going to take up any measures to combat the epidemic of gun violence in the wake of the worst mass shooting in the history of this country. It has felt like we have fallen upon the precipice of accepting this as the new normal in this country. All we are doing tonight is standing here and talking. We are asking for a vote. And I think, as I will speak to in a moment, we have gotten to a place where we are going to get votes on these important amendments, but all we are doing here is talking. Senator Booker was right when he said that what has happened this afternoon and this evening is a platform for sustained and collective action that demands that this not be just a one-time phenomenon, that this passion you heard from dozens of Members of the Senate who came down here organically just because they cared sustains throughout the day, the months, and the years. As I said earlier on this floor, great change movements are defined by their obstacles and failures, and we have already had a bunch of failures when it comes to our fight for gun violence measures. We lost a big vote on the floor of the Senate in 2013. There are State legislatures that have gone in the other direction and made it easier to get weapons. We lost a vote here in December when we tried to expand our background check system to make sure that people who are on the terrorist watch list are captured by it. We have had our share of defeats and losses. As it turns out, we will get to have votes on these amendments, and maybe we will lose those too. But every great change movement in this country is defined by persistence in the face of obstacles and failures, and this change movement isn't defined by what we do here, it is defined by the 90 percent of Americans who believe in the righteousness of what we are proposing. Frankly, we aren't in the business of changing the minds of millions of Americans; we are in the business of changing the minds of a few dozen Members of Congress. It doesn't sound that bad when you put it that way, right? We don't have to convince the broad electorate that something has to change; we just have to convince a few people here. And that can happen--it can--but it won't happen through Senator Booker, Senator Blumenthal, and me coming down here and doing this week after week; it will happen because members of the public decided to make those 10,000 phone calls that somehow plausibly fit themselves into the phone lines to my office today. Those phone calls need to go to every other office in the Senate and House over the course of the coming days, weeks, and months as we lead up to these meaningful votes. This is an issue that voters prioritize when they go to the voting booth. They need to pay attention to whether their Member of Congress is voting with or against them when it comes to commonsense issues like expanding background checks to cover gun shows and Internet sales and making sure terrorists don't get guns. It is a commitment to never lose that sense of empathy which has to be at the root of this. Luis Vielma was 22 years old when he was shot and killed late Sunday night in Orlando in the largest mass shooting in American history. He had been so excited that night because he was hosting a friend of his who was visiting from Miami. He wanted to show him this wonderful nightclub that he had found, this place where the community could come together and celebrate themselves. His father Jose suggested that the two of them come over to his house for some homemade Mexican food, but Luis was so excited to have a great time that night with his visiting friend that he put off his dad and said: I am going down to the club. I am heading downtown. On his way to the club, he texted to his dad: ``I love you.'' Those were the last words Jose ever heard from his son. His family said that he went to the club that night to dance. ``Oh, and he can dance and get down,'' a family friend said. ``Yes, he can.'' He was born in Florida, but he loved the Mexican national football team, adored his family, liked to play tricks on his younger brother, and was a huge Harry Potter fan. He had a job at Universal Studios. He worked on the Harry Potter ride, and that was a big deal to Luis. Upon hearing of his death, J.K. Rowling tweeted out a tribute to him. His job at Universal was a passion for him because he loved Harry Potter, but it was also paying for his education. He was studying to be a physical therapist at Seminole State College. His friend Will Randle said: Luis was by far the best person I knew. He inherently made us all better people by simply existing around us. Part of him will always live on in every good decision that I make. Kelly, a friend of his on Facebook, asked: ``How could this happen to someone so kind?'' How could this happen to anyone? In December of 2015, Jonathan Aranda was shot and killed in the morning hours of December 8 in New Haven, CT. He was 19 years old. He had just graduated from Eli Whitney Technical High School in Hamden, CT. In a statement, the superintendent of schools talked about the devastation in the entire educational community because of the loss of this beautiful young man. His cousin said he was hard-working, and he was well-liked. He worked at Brook & Whittle, a packaging company in Guilford. He was getting out of work. He had stopped at a friend's house to talk about cars, and then, bam, this senseless act of violence happened. His friend said that he was quick to lend a hand when you needed help and he wouldn't ask for anything in return. He worked the third shift and he came home, and then he helped his friends and his family. His younger sister said that he was a humble and loving person, and he never picked fights. A very, very likeable kid, said his cousin. He didn't have a problem with anybody. Luis Vielma was 22 years old when he was killed on Saturday night in the worst mass shooting in the history of this country. This shooting has gotten a lot of publicity, and it has prompted us to come down to this floor and demand change. But nobody in this country knows about Jonathan Aranda. He was killed in December of last year on the streets of New Haven, and his family and friends and his educational family mourn for him, but he didn't make headlines. There are the 80 others that day on December 8 who died didn't make headlines either, but their deaths are just as meaningful, just as impactful, and just as unacceptable as the 50 people who died late on Saturday night, early Sunday morning in Orlando. It doesn't have to be like this. That is why we have come to the floor this evening. I am going to turn the floor over to Senator Blumenthal in a moment. Actually, I will turn it over to Senator Booker for some comments and then to Senator Blumenthal. But let me just finish these remarks by talking about the families of Sandy Hook. Senator Booker was talking about courageous acts of empathy. I think it is a wonderful turn of a phrase. I think about the courageous act of empathy inherent in the decision made by the families of those murdered in Sandy Hook to come to the Congress to argue in 2013 and then again in 2014, 2015, and 2016 for background checks, because if you know the facts of the case in Sandy Hook, background checks on sales at gun shows or with respect to online sales wouldn't have mattered in that case, because that sale was done with a background check. To the families of Sandy Hook, what would matter much more is a ban on military-style assault weapons like the kind that was used to kill every single kid that was shot in Sandy Hook or a ban on high-capacity magazines. Let me tell you this. There are kids who survived that shooting. They survived that shooting because the shooter fumbled when he went to reload and a handful of kids snuck out. But because he was using 30- round magazines, he only had to reload a handful of times. Had he been forced to reload after discharging 10 bullets rather than 30 bullets, there are a lot of families in Newtown who think there would be more kids alive today. That mattered to them. But they came to Washington in a courageous act of empathy to argue on behalf of Jonathan Aranda, who was still alive in the spring of 2013 when we took that vote. They came to this Congress to argue on behalf of those still living on the streets of this country who could benefit by an expanded background check system that would stem the flow of illegal weapons on their streets. Had we been successful, had we been able to pick up a few more votes to persist and beat that filibuster, maybe Jonathan Aranda would be alive today. Had we years ago passed a law that puts people who have had an intersection with the FBI with respect to terrorist connections on the list of those who are prohibited from buying guns, maybe that network would have caught up with Omar Mateen, and he would never have bought the weapon that he used to kill those in Orlando. Those are all maybes, but life isn't always a game of certainties. What we have been asking for here today is to just take a step forward and take a vote on two commonsense measures that can start to show that we have the ability to make progress as a body. There is a laundry list of other things that everyone who has spoken wants to happen. Our families in Sandy Hook have a laundry list of other things that they want to occur. But we want to start with these two commonsense measures. Through the Chair to Senator Booker and Senator Blumenthal, I think we can report some very meaningful progress over the course of these 13 hours. When we began this debate on the floor, when we declared that we were not going to move forward on the CJS bill without a commitment to talk about what happened in Orlando, to talk about how we fix it, and when we began, there was no commitment, no plan to debate these measures. It is our understanding that the Republican leader and the Democratic leader have spoken and that we have been given a commitment on a path forward to get votes on the floor of the Senate on a measure to assure that those on the terrorist watch list do not get guns, the Feinstein amendment, and an amendment introduced by myself and Senator Booker and Senator Schumer to expand background checks to gun shows and to Internet sales. Now, we still have to get from here to there, but we did not have that commitment when we started today, and we have that understanding at the end of the day. There is no guarantee that those amendments will pass. But we will have some time to take the movement that existed before we started and maybe is a little bit stronger now and try to prevail upon Members to take these two measures and turn them into law. So I am deeply grateful to be standing here at now 1:40 in the morning with both of my friends who started here with me now going on 14 hours ago. I gladly yield to my friend Senator Booker for a question and any final comments that he has.

Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, I thank the Senator for this question, which is at the center of this moment. This can't just be about the 30- some odd Senators who have taken to the floor over the last 12 hours. And by the way, we have now been on the floor for over 12 hours. This has to be about something bigger. This has to be about a national movement that commands this place to act. It has happened before, and it has to happen here. It means voters have to elevate this issue on their priority list. It means more people have to start asking questions about why their Members of Congress, why their Senators, are voting in a way that is contrary to the vast majority of their constituents. It means everyone in this country deciding not to accept what exists today as the status quo. And let's remind everyone, as Senator Durbin has over and over again, that what exists today is not just a regularity of mass shootings; that prior to 2008, it happened at the pace of one per every 2 months--these are the big shootings--that now happen once every single month. It is also the regularity of gun violence that happens in our cities, such that kids in Hartford, CT, explained to me a year ago that police sirens and ambulance sirens are their lullaby at night because it is just a regular facet of their existence. The American people can't accept that either. Let me just say before I turn the floor over to Senator Merkley how proud I am of all of our colleagues, not just for joining in but for the way in which we have conducted this debate over the last 12 hours. We are angry at a lot of people, but I am really proud that this debate has been on the level and that we have tried to remain as dispassionate as we can about the path forward. Let me add one statistic to the mix. I just heard that my office has received 10,000 phone calls today. I actually have no idea how my office could handle 10,000 phone calls, so I asked to double and triple check that number. We only have two phones up front. But we have apparently received 10,000 phone calls today encouraging all of us to continue on this mission. I appreciate the work that is being done by the staff on the floor. They are staying and laboring extra hours. We know that is not in their job description. This is the professional staff who man the desks and also the political staff within both caucuses and the personal staff. There are a lot of people who didn't know they were going to be staying this late tonight, including those who are reporting our words, and I thank them as well. I want to acknowledge that there is progress being made as we speak on trying to find a path forward. So I want to thank those on both sides of the aisle who are working to try to find a way forward to take these votes. We are hopeful at this hour. We still have more to say, and at this point I will yield for a question to Senator Merkley without relinquishing my right to the floor. (Mr. ROUNDS assumed the Chair.)

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator from Oregon for his passion on both of these topics and for laying out the challenge for us, which is to move forward on these consensus proposals to close the terrorist loophole, to expand the number of sales that are subject to background checks, and to make sure everybody who buys a gun through a commercial sale has to prove they are not a criminal, but linking together what I would call doubling down on inclusiveness that has to happen in the wake of Orlando. An incident like this has a tendency to pull a community apart. Yet what we know is that the way to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again is for to us recommit ourselves to inclusiveness and to tolerance and to fighting discrimination. I can't say anything more than the Senator said with respect to that commitment as it applies to LGBT Americans. I do hope we are able to move the Equality Act through this body. I think we are in a long and frustratingly slow transition to a place that we all know we are going to get to, which is the full right to individuals no matter their sexual orientation. I also know that coming off this tragedy, there is going to be a tendency to marginalize another community, and that is the Muslim community in this country. As we talk about our efforts to build an inclusive society, we have to remember that the way in which we make our Nation safe is by building these inclusive communities where Muslim Americans feel a part of the whole, not feel excluded, because it builds and plays straight into the recruiting rhetoric of these terrorist groups if we are divided, if we push people out to the extremes. So I think this is a very important message for us all to hear, that fighting terrorism, whether it be hate-based crimes or politically based crimes inspired by terrorist groups--we combat it best, yes, when we tailor our gun laws to make sure that those who are thinking about these crimes, these horrific murderers, don't get guns, but also when we build these inclusive communities, which acts as a pretty strong prophylactic to terror. I yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator for that question, and I appreciate your talking about how this happened organically. We didn't decide to do this until this morning. We certainly had been talking about the need to show that we were sick and tired of the normal trajectory of thoughts and prayers being sent out and then a dissipation into nothingness, as is the trend line after these tragedies. We knew we had to do something different. But what is wonderful about this is that much of this is organic. This is now a dozen colleagues who are on the floor at close to midnight this evening, and the gallery is increasing in numbers at this very time. I think the last I saw, 100,000 people were talking about this right now on Twitter. It has been the top trending topic all day long. Thousands of calls are coming in to our office. I hope this is a moment in which we all get to remind ourselves that this change will not happen without vigilance--that it is not just going to be this moment. It is going to have to be repeated moments in which we engage the consciousness of this Nation. So I do feel momentum here. We are hopeful we will be able to proceed to at least votes on these measures so we can show the American public where everybody is. If we don't win those votes, we will live to fight another day. But these are galvanizing moments, and it is heartwarming to know that there are so many colleagues who have stepped up to the plate to take part.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator for bringing up this bogeyman issue that continues to come up about due process. Let's first be clear that there is a double standard here. There is not a single Member of the Republican majority who decries the lack of due process when it comes to individuals who are denied the right to fly because of their inclusion on this list. Nobody stands up and says that there isn't the ability to grieve the fact that you are on the list of those individuals who are prohibited to fly. Yet there is some special consideration that is supposed to be given to an individual who is deemed to have an association with a terrorist group who wants to buy an assault weapon. It would seem almost the opposite. Maybe that individual should be given extra consideration. Of course, this idea that has been proffered in the Cornyn amendment that we voted on in December is laughable. It is not a serious attempt to solve this problem in that it would provide for a court determination and a court process before anybody on that list would be denied a firearm. That individual would have to walk into a gun store. The gun store would say, no, you have been flagged by the Department of Justice, and we are going to call them to see if they would like to take you to court over the next 72 hours in a process that no one knows what it would look like. There would be potential discovery, the ability to rebut the claim that you were a terrorist. It would be a laughingstock, a mockery of the judicial process. I think those who have supported the amendment probably know that. They are voting for it so they can claim that they supported something other than the piece of legislation that the majority of Americans support, which is the simple addition to the list of those who are prohibited from buying weapons of individuals who are on the terrorist no-fly list. I will state very quickly as to your second question, yes, of course, if you are serious about solving this problem, you can't just put those individuals on the no-fly list, on the list of those who are prohibited from buying weapons. You actually have to also close that loophole that allows for thousands upon thousands of gun sales to occur at gun shows and online because a terrorist or a would-be terrorist may get denied at the bricks-and-mortar gun store, but then they can later that day go online or that weekend go to a gun show at the convention center and buy a weapon. So you have to do both, which is why we are asking for both of these votes.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for his comments and the question. Of course, the answer is that there is absolutely no risk involved in the votes that we are hopeful to bring forward in the Senate. Why? Because these are propositions that are supported by the vast majority of the American public. There is no controversy over either of these issues. The risk is in doing nothing. The risk is in continuing to allow for this very large loophole for would-be terrorists to walk through. I won't read it again, but several times on the floor today I have read this quote from a now-deceased Al Qaeda operative in which he very clearly advertises to recruits here in the United States: You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check. . . . So what are you waiting for? This is one of Al Qaeda's top operatives, directing individuals in the United States to take advantage of this loophole. We have seen this trend line away from other means of terrorist attacks to the assault weapon, to the firearm. So we should pay attention to this trend and do something about it. The real risk is doing nothing, Senator Casey. There is no risk in voting for this. You will be celebrated by the American people. After tonight, I hope there will be even more who will join our call. The real risk is in standing pat and allowing for ISIS to recruit straight into the loophole that we have created. Think about what we are doing. We are selling guns to the enemy knowingly if we allow our set of laws today to persist. That is why we have to move forward and enact these commonsense measures. With that, I yield to Senator King for a question, who has been great to be with us for the majority of this late evening, without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. Senator Kaine, they support it. NRA members support it at the exact same rate that non-gun owners and non-NRA members support it. In fact, NRA members, frankly, have been historically those who have been most supportive of provisions that would prevent guns from getting into the hands of criminals because by and large NRA members are law- abiding gun owners. Historically, they have had some of the greatest concern about this, which is why it is so hard to understand this disconnect between where their members are, where gun owners are, and where the advocacy organization is.

Mr. MURPHY. When you present these issues to the American public, they scratch their heads, or they scratch their heads because they assume already that individuals on the terrorist watch list cannot buy guns. They think it is absurd that we passed a law that subjects toy guns to a greater standard of negligence than real guns. I mean, that is what that law effectively did. That law said that if you sell a toy gun, then you are going to be subject to a higher standard of negligence if that gun misperforms than a gun company is going to be held to if its gun--its real gun--misfires. When you explain that to somebody in your State, whether you are in a red State or a blue State, they scratch their heads. It doesn't make sense to them.

Mr. MURPHY. If you walk into a gun club in Connecticut, there is going to be pretty solid consensus that criminals shouldn't buy guns. And those law-abiding gun owners who sit in those gun clubs on Saturdays and Sundays have absolutely no problem with sales online or sales at gun shows being subject to background checks because they have gone through background check. They know that on average a background check takes less than 10 minutes. They know that it is nothing more than a 9-minute, on average, inconvenience for someone who is buying a gun, and they support it further. Frankly, those guys in the gun clubs are amongst the loudest in their concern that terrorists have the ability today to buy dangerous weapons and commit mass murder like we saw in Orlando. So this consensus that exists out there in the American public is not a consensus amongst progressive Democrats; it is a consensus amongst gun owners, non-gun owners, Democrats, Republicans, moms, dads, conservatives, liberals, Georgia, Connecticut, California. There isn't a cross-section of the American public that doesn't support keeping bad guys from getting guns and thus the two reforms we are asking for here today--a law that prohibits people on the terrorist watch list from getting guns and a law that expands background checks to all of the forms in which guns are sold today.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator for that question, and I guess we both agree that of course it has to be possible. There just aren't many moments in which the American public is so resolute in their belief that we should do something and this place is so resolute in its belief it should stay on the outside of consensus. There just aren't many issues where the American public has decided at a 90-percent rate that we should act and we refuse to do so. So my belief is, democracy doesn't allow for this condition to persist for very long, but I will be honest with my colleague. The burden is not so much on us. The burden is on our Republican friends to come to the table with proposals that mirror those that are supported by the American public. Today, the proposals we are asking for votes on enjoy the support of 90 percent of Americans--increasing the range of background checks and making sure terrorists don't get weapons. So given the fact the American public supports our position, frankly, it would be irresponsible of us to agree to something that is an abandonment of those fundamental beliefs on behalf of Americans. Our frustration is that we have had lots of time to work out a compromise. It was 6 months ago when we last had a vote on the issue of terrorist access to weapons, and we still have not had any effort, any outreach from the Republican side of the aisle, to try and find common ground. So the answer is, of course, yes, we can find that common ground, but there has to be another party to work with. I would commend my Republican friends to take a look at the language Senator Feinstein filed today. It is not her original bill that was 18 pages long. The bill she filed today is a simple bill of about 2 to 3 pages, which simply gives to the Attorney General the ability to put a system in place whereby individuals who have demonstrable connections to terrorist organizations cannot buy weapons and a clear exit ramp for individuals who are on that list wrongly to be able to purchase firearms. So I think that amendment has addressed the concerns Republicans have raised, and I hope, if we can get an agreement to bring that amendment to a vote, they will see it as that consensus product and allow us to adopt it. I thank Senator Donnelly again for joining us, and I yield to the Senator from Indiana for a question without losing my right to the floor.